Review History for beky4021

Oak Park Townhomes


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beky4021

Resident 2008 - 2009

9/19/2014

Initially, when we moved (in Feb of 2008) in it was pretty fabulous. We had a cute little welcome basket, and the staff was incredibly friendly. It was only until there was hiccups that things got weird and management (Lori) showed their true colors. The area is a decent area - it's right on the edge of the decent area and bad area though, and isn't somewhere I'd feel comfortable walking around after dusk by myself. Other parts of Tulare are much safer, have better crime rates, and quieter neighbors whose kids don't peer into your windows. Maintenance issues were "eh" at best - the pest control when we developed a roach problem was wonderful, though when our oven thermostat broke to where we needed to keep the oven door open to cook in there and have it remain at a consistent temperature was a huge, huge hassle that was never fixed while we were there. The heating and cooling system was rather awful too - combine that with single pane windows that don't keep anything warm (winter) or cool (summer), we had electricity bills soaring. Through winter was fine, but through summer the townhomes would get awfully hot. All they had in these units were swamp coolers - that sat on top of the townhouses. Which are not shaded, mind you, so any outside temps greater than 90 degrees (and in Central CA the temps hit the 90s in April and May!) render swamp coolers practically useless. They had, for additional fees, window A/Cs though but the fees were a little too high for us. During the summer, tenants from other parts of the complex with kids would hang around the playground and courtyard area and at 12, 1 and up to even 2am be talking loudly and yelling, with their kids playing on the playgrounds, running around screaming (as kids do). I don't blame the kids for running around screaming, but volume like that is certainly unappreciated at that hour and I do certainly blame the parents that were out there with them and not a) quieting the kids and b) quieting THEMSELVES. Regardless of how much you asked them to be quiet, that people were sleeping. Even through the closed (single pane) windows you could hear everything, and for those of us who had to be up for work in the early hours we rathered have some semblance of sleep but apparently this was too big a request for management to handle. My husband was injured at work in September, and was out on disability for a few weeks, and money was tight but we were able to keep things balanced as best we could and made sure we juggled to where we could pay our most vital bills like rent until his money came through (this is important). The next month, after we paid rent, we noticed it was taking a really long time to come out of our bank account. We keep hawk eyes on our accounts and it was unusual for this to happen. We approached the manager, Lori, with our concerns, saying that we'd noticed the money hadn't come out and we didn't know what the issue was, but if there was an issue to please let us know. She knew things were precarious with our situation because of my husband's accident and had always made us feel cared for and had made herself sound so flexible. Lori smiled, said not to worry, that she'd look into it. She had been so warm and friendly and caring up to that point that we trusted her with that. Three days later, we came home to an OPEN letter stuck to our front door - not folded up, not in an envelope, not in our mailbox, just an open piece of paper for all neighbors to come and view our private information as they liked - that our payment had bounced, that we were now late with the rent and owed the late fee on top of the rent, and had to pay it via money order or cashiers check as our personal checks could no longer be trusted. That should we not remit payment within 3 days, eviction proceedings would be initiated. Well color me shocked! For someone who came across as so warm and caring and for someone who was so appreciative that we'd come to her when we suspected an issue rather than just letting it be, she decided apparently that humiliating us and airing our issues (and confidential information!) to all the neighbors in an open page stuck to our door rather than approaching us in the same manner that we'd been encouraged to approach her was the way to go. (For the record, the check bounced because of a banking error, not because we were deadbeats!) We fully own that the mistake is on our side, but given how we were always encouraged to approach them, that they were flexible and if there were issues, forgiving (so they said) the way that they handled it was absolutely appalling. We had never, ever been late with rent, and we knew there was a problem and we attempted to be proactive and handle it the best way we knew how. The third issue that we encountered in our 11 months there was the issue of moving out. We had a prior walk through inspection, when the townhome had been emptied and completely cleaned by us, and we were told by Lori that everything looked good and was fine. So color us surprised (again!) when we apparently could not take her at her word, and we did not even receive half of our security deposit back because a) the fans had not been dusted and b) the oven hadn't been cleaned and c) patching nail holes in the walls. We had been told prior that they'd charge the $10 for patching wall holes (and there were so few, we didn't mind that part at all) but to be charged over $200 out of $350 for not dusting the fans and cleaning the oven AFTER WE'D BEEN TOLD EVERYTHING LOOKED GOOD AND WAS FINE BY MANAGEMENT was absolutely ridiculous beyond all belief. We were young, first time renters and naive and didn't know that we were able to dispute that and to fight for our remaining deposit, but you can be sure that we know better now. Oak Park is great in some aspects, but I would not trust management, particularly Lori, as far as I could throw them. I would never rent from them again. As soon as we were able, we moved to Visalia (not half hour away) and were able to get places that were nicer, cheaper, and had central air!
    Manager

    9/23/2014

    Oak Park Townhomes
    Thank you for sharing your comments with us. We apologize for the negative experience you had here with us at Oak Park Townhomes. I am sorry to hear you had maintenance issues that were not corrected right away. We strive in taking care of our resident's needs in a timely manner. The heating/cooling systems we do have are less expensive than running a central air and heating system. We do understand that it may get hotter in the summer and we do disclose this to the residents. Again, we apologize for this. We are also sorry to hear that the noise in the playground area bothered you at odd hours of the night. We currently have courtesy patrol at Oak Park Townhomes in the evening to prevent any of this. We are not quite sure what had happened with the notice that was posted on your door and apologize for this. Lastly, we also apologize for the issue regarding your deposit that was held for cleaning and the patching for nail holes. We understand your disagreement on this and do make sure charges are posted correctly. Oak Park Townhomes is now under new on-site management. We do our best to maintain the happiness of our residents. Your feedback will definitely help us because every opinion is important to us. We wish you the best! Thank you again.

    Review 13 out of 28

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